


The Other Kind of Conversation

by thecarlysutra



Category: Batman (Movies 1989-1997), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batman Forever, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Catharsis, Childhood Trauma, Corporal Punishment, Father Figures, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Movie: Batman Forever (1995), Pre-Canon, Spanking, Strapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 12:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19109824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/pseuds/thecarlysutra
Summary: Three times Alfred spanked Bruce when he wasn’t expecting it.





	The Other Kind of Conversation

  
Ten.

Bruce’s parents have been dead six months, and he feels unmoored. He doesn’t mean to change, although he knows he has. He’s always been a good boy, and now he’s not being bad, exactly, but everything is unfocused, and he’s just floating untethered like a balloon that’s slipped out of a little boy’s hand, and everything in his life … it just isn’t the same. He’s always been a good student, but now none of his lessons seem to have any weight to them. Nothing that’s happened in history, no poem or formula, is as important, as urgently needful, as what’s going on in his own life. He just can’t focus. He doesn’t see the point.

He doesn’t go back to the cave, but he thinks about it constantly. Thinks about what it means. He goes other places on the grounds, though, climbing up trees higher than he ever has before, feeling the branches sway beneath him as they get thinner the further up the tree he climbs. He investigates ponds and rock formations, and invariably returns to the manor muddy and scraped. Alfred tuts over him, cleans and binds his wounds, but doesn’t say anything beyond reproaching him to be more careful. 

Bruce doesn’t see the point of being careful, either.

One day, he walks far into the hills. He doesn’t know if it’s still the manor grounds; he doesn’t know if he’s still in Gotham. He just played in his mind how it would feel walking through the empty halls of the manor, and something primal in him pushed him away, like he and the manor are magnets of the same polarity. It’s not that he feels himself being drawn; he feels himself being pushed.

At some point, dark clouds gather and cut off the sun. The sky quakes with thunder, and far off in the distance, Bruce sees lightning tear the sky. He remembers drawing storms when he was younger, and he always drew the lightning in yellow, as a jagged line, but in real life the lightning is white, and it’s shaped more like the veins going up his arm. At some point, it starts to rain, and soon it becomes a downpour, the water a wall all around him, too much falling for him to see through in any direction. He fumbles blindly through it, and at some point, he falls. It’s not for a long way, not like the cave. He feels his skin split open, but he doesn’t feel like crying. He feels like screaming.

It’s dark when he finds his way home. There are police at the manor, and at first Bruce fears the worst. He walks into the manor expecting to see another body on the ground. But Alfred is fine; he scoops Bruce up in his arms the second he sees him, squeezing him tight. Bruce realizes that Alfred called the police because of him, because he was scared for him. Bruce feels pain because he caused Alfred pain, but he doesn’t know how to explain himself, how to apologize. 

Alfred shows the police out, and he runs Bruce a bath. Bruce bathes, and then dresses in his pajamas, and Alfred sits him down on his bed and checks him over to see where he’s hurt. He disinfects his wounds and bandages the ones that are still bleeding, and then he stays there, crouched down in front of Bruce so they are the same height, and looks him in the eye.

“Master Bruce,” he says solemnly, “we need to have a conversation.”

Bruce nods. Alfred folds his hands around Bruce’s, speaks to him in a voice that is both gentle and serious.

“I knew your parents for a very long time, Master Bruce. They were family to me. I loved them. I feel their loss keenly, as I know you do. And you. I held you on the day you were born, young man, and I have loved you since then. It hurts my heart to think that something bad may happen to you, too, just because you aren’t being careful. Just because you’re feeling instead of thinking. There is room for heart in life, Master Bruce, but you cannot forget to use your head.”

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Bruce says miserably. “I didn’t mean to. I never want to hurt you.”

“I know that, my child. But I’m more concerned about you hurting yourself.” He pauses. He’s looking at Bruce in a way that Bruce can feel the love Alfred has for him pouring out of him, but also in a way that tells him the tone of the conversation is about to change. “You have been getting more and more lost as the days go on. I have been letting it go, because I thought you just needed some time to adjust, but now I see that I should never have left you alone like that, with no direction, no discipline. I am going to remedy that. I want the best for you, and I will help you in any way I can, but I fear now I must help you in a way that will hurt, initially. You need to be taught a lesson about how valuable you are, about how much I care for you, and about how I will respond in the future if you continue to drift away.”

Alfred stands. Bruce looks up at him from the bed; he looks like he’s a hundred feet tall.

“I am going to give you a spanking now, young man. Please stand up.”

Bruce stands. His legs are shaky, but he tries to ignore it. He has been spanked before; his father used to spank him on the rare occasion he would get into trouble. Alfred has never spanked him, and he’s not afraid of Alfred, but he’s afraid of the weight in the room, and he’s afraid of what’s coming.

But not as much as he’s afraid of himself, how he’s been feeling these past six months. How lost he’s gotten himself. 

Alfred sits down on the bed. He takes Bruce by the arm and guides him over his lap, his head hanging down, his bottom up. Alfred holds him down with one hand on his back, and without saying anything, he yanks down Bruce’s pajamas and his underwear, so his bottom is bare for the spanking. 

“This is going to hurt very much,” Alfred says, “but I expect you to be a good boy and not fight me. I know you understand why I’m doing this, and that you deserve it.”

Bruce does. Alfred draws his hand back, and smacks it down firmly on the spot of Bruce’s bottom where he rests his weight when he sits. It hurts. It hurts a lot more before it’s over. Alfred spanks him for a long time, with a steady, hard hand. But Bruce is a good boy just like Alfred said he’d be. He cries and cries, but he doesn't kick or fight. 

The spanking doesn’t stop until after Bruce is done crying. He’s just laying limp over Alfred’s knee, taking everything that comes. Finally, Alfred stops. He pulls Bruce’s bottoms up, and then pulls Bruce up. He brushes Bruce’s hair away from his wet face, looks him in the eye. 

“I will do that again,” Alfred says. “Any time you need it.” 

Bruce nods. “Okay. Can I have a hug, now?” 

Alfred looks surprised, but he smiles. He takes Bruce into his arms, holds him tight. 

“I will do this any time you need it, too, Master Bruce.” 

 

Twenty. 

Alfred tries, in his gentle way, to steer Bruce to an out of state college. It isn’t because Alfred wants Bruce to be away from him, Bruce knows. It’s because he wants Bruce to be away from _Gotham_. 

Bruce resists. Enrolls in the local university, doesn’t even move into the dorms. He stays at the manor, keeps doing what he has been doing. 

What he has been doing is going out at night as Batman. 

By now, Bruce has been Batman for three years. Well. He’s _been_ Batman for a lot longer than that, maybe from the moment he fell into that cave. But he’s actually been out on the streets acting as Batman since he was seventeen. He started conditioning himself within a year of his parents’ death. Insisted on martial arts lessons, strength training. He began learning about engineering before he hit high school, and by junior year, he was ready. He put on the suit and went out into the night. And he’s done it most every night since. 

Alfred, he knows, does not approve. He wants normal things for Bruce. He wants him to go to parties and play sports again and have friends. But things like that … they make Bruce feel like he’s pretending to be a person he really isn’t. They make him feel like he’s wearing a mask that no one cares to see through.

Everyone wants to see who’s behind Batman’s mask, but to Bruce, it doesn’t feel like a mask at all.

Bruce comes home late. He’s hurting. Bleeding. There may be some broken bones, but all he can think of is ways he should alter the suit to avoid this in the future.

The manor is dark when he sneaks in, and for a moment he hopes Alfred is asleep, but he isn’t even out of the suit when he hears the false door open and close, and then familiar footsteps echoing through the Batcave. Bruce sighs. Wipes blood out of his eyes. Continues stripping off the suit, one unyielding piece of rubber at a time.

“Do you require a surgeon, young man?” Alfred asks.

Bruce shakes his head. “I’m fine, Alfred. I told you not to wait up for me.” 

“And I told you I will always be here for you, should you need me.”

Alfred comes closer. He frowns, looking at Bruce’s face, which he imagines is a mess of blood and bruises. 

“Sit down, please,” Alfred says quietly. 

Bruce is stripped down to his underwear, and he does as he’s told, pulling himself up onto the counter in the room where he keeps his suit. Alfred looks over him thoroughly, not saying anything. Occasionally he makes a displeased humming noise, but he doesn’t speak. He produces a first aid kit from one of the cabinets—it seems to keep getting bigger, and Bruce frowns, thinking of Alfred making mental notes on what doctoring supplies he needs, the same way Bruce automatically thinks of ways to improve the suit—and begins tending to Bruce’s wounds, starting with the cut on his head. 

“You do need a surgeon,” Alfred says. “This needs stitches.”

“You can do them,” Bruce says. Alfred gives him a poisonous look, and he amends: “I’ll do them. Just get me a mirror.”

Alfred tuts, but he doesn’t respond. In the end, Alfred does the stitches while Bruce bites down on his belt. This time, they both add _anesthetic_ to the list of things Alfred should put in the first aid kit. 

Bruce is tired, but Alfred is thorough, and Bruce owes him this, so he sits still while Alfred slowly bandages all of his wounds, while he checks the bruises to make sure they aren’t breaks. When he’s finally finished, Bruce hops down from the counter, going to the closet for some sweats he can wear out of the cave and up to bed.

“Not so fast, young man,” Alfred says. “You and I need to have a conversation.”

“Can’t we talk in the morning?” Bruce asks hopefully.

Alfred’s face is grave. “No, Master Bruce. The _other_ kind of conversation.”

Bruce flushes. “What did I do?” he asks, hating how young he sounds.

“I saw you on the news being spectacularly reckless. You could have died jumping from that building to the next.”

“The cape … it helps with that kind of thing,” Bruce says lamely. Alfred does not look impressed. “I needed to, Alfred. To catch the bad guys. They would have gotten away.”

“Master Bruce, I understand your desire to cleanse Gotham of evildoers. And I understand that nothing I say or do will stop you from endeavoring to do so. What I need you to understand is that there is a difference between being brave and taking stupid risks. Some risks are necessary. And some are reckless, and I will not lose you to a stupid mistake.”

Bruce bows his head.

“I’m sorry that I worried you,” he says softly. “I don’t want you to carry any of this.”

“But I would not want you to shoulder it alone,” Alfred says gently.

Bruce looks up. He bites his lip. “You’re really going to spank me for this?”

“I am. You need to learn this lesson.”

“Aren’t I too old to be spanked?” he asks hopefully.

“With respect, Master Bruce, I don’t think you are equipped to make that decision yourself.”

That’s fair. Bruce’s shoulders slump. “Okay.”

He’s waiting for Alfred to sit down so he can go across his lap when Alfred picks up the belt Bruce bit down on while Alfred was doing his stitches. Bruce’s stomach flips. He hasn’t been given the belt often, and it’s scary in a way that jumping from rooftop to rooftop isn’t. 

“Oh,” he says softly. “Okay.”

“Bend over the counter, please, and take down your underwear.”

Bruce takes his underwear off, and then leans over the counter, balancing himself on his elbows. He really didn’t anticipate tonight ending like this, but maybe it’s good that it is. Alfred only spanks him when he deserves it, and … yeah, maybe not the best problem-solving skills tonight, Bruce. Okay.

Bruce hears Alfred walk behind him. He breathes in slowly, keeps his eyes straight ahead. He wonders how many strokes he’s going to get, but knows better than to ask the question aloud. Alfred doesn’t assign some arbitrary number to his punishments. He gauges Bruce’s reaction, and decides that way when he’s had enough. Which is better, Bruce supposes. For everyone but his backside.

Bruce hears the belt whistle through the air, and flinches before it even hits him. When it does, he takes in a sharp gasp as a red hot stripe of pain burns across his ass. Then another, and another. Alfred is patient, strong, and thorough. He delivers the strokes purposefully, with force and with an easy, regular rhythm. It’s almost like the foxtrot: one, two, three, pain. One, two, three, pain. 

Bruce is panting now. He’s had at least two dozen strokes, and his ass feels raw. It’s not just the pain of the initial slap, but then that spot is super-sensitive for the rest of it, and every time the belt criss-crosses it, it’s like salt in the wound. He’s starting to feel small, punished, guilty and bad, the same as he does anytime Alfred spanks him. It’s been ten years since the first time, but he’s always felt just like that, a little boy who is getting exactly what he deserves.

Exactly what he _needs_ , maybe.

The repetitive pain is part of it. Bruce is no stranger to pain, is getting good at handling it, but the stupid foxtrot rhythm of it, that it keeps coming and coming like it’ll never stop … there’s something about that that makes him feel desperate, trapped. And he knows he’s grown now, and he’s strong, and that if he really wanted to, he could just walk away from Alfred and the belt, and that there’s nothing Alfred could do to make him take these licks. But he isn’t that kind of person. He would never try to squirm away from a punishment he earned, and he certainly wouldn’t disrespect Alfred like that. And that’s the other thing. Bruce knows Alfred doesn’t like doing this. He knows it hurts him, too. And the fact that he’s caused the only person in the whole world who loves him to hurt him …? 

The first tears fall. He cries silently now, not like when he was a kid, but he feels them bathe his face, salty and hot, and that starts everything breaking down. Like the tears are eroding whatever composure he had left. He bows his head so low his forehead almost touches the countertop. Tears are falling off his face like rain, and he’s sobbing silently, his shoulders shaking, while the belt burns stripes across his ass and thighs so painful it feels like they’re wet, like the pain has put him through a phase change. 

It’s not much longer after that. It takes him a moment to notice he’s not being whipped anymore, and then Alfred is coming up beside him, dropping the belt to the countertop and gently stroking Bruce’s hair, his shoulder.

“There, there, Master Bruce,” Alfred says. “It’s all over with, now. You can put it behind you.”

It takes Bruce a moment to compose himself enough to speak.

“Everything but the lesson,” he says.

“Of course,” Alfred says. “I’d prefer this is a lesson I only have to teach once, thank you. You’re a bright boy; I know you can remember it.” 

Bruce swallows. Sniffs. Wipes some of the tears off his face with his knuckles. He rights himself, setting off an explosion of pain as he moves his abused skin and muscles, and then he turns toward Alfred, pressing his face against his shoulder, pushing himself into his arms.

“Thanks,” he murmurs, most of the sound lost in Alfred’s collar.

Alfred holds him. “It’s all right, young man. You’re all right. We’ll shoulder this together.” 

 

Thirty-two. 

Bruce goes to parties now. He has friends. He runs his family’s company. And it doesn’t feel like a lie anymore.

He’s still Batman. 

He thought he had gotten at least part of his life under control, but with Two-Face intent on shredding everything decent in Gotham and killing Batman as his number one priority, every part of Bruce’s life right now is chaos.

And Dick. Bruce is angry about Dick’s vendetta, and his escalating recalcitrance, but he isn’t surprised. He meant what he told Dick: They’re the same. It’s just that Dick has a chance. He was older than Bruce when Bruce lost his parents, and he can still be something else. 

Bruce doesn’t regret his life choices. But the thought of Dick making those same choices drives Bruce a little crazy.

He worries that he finally understands how Alfred feels.

Dick has stormed out. Alfred has lectured him. Bruce wants to get the rest of the suit off, and he wants to shower for as long as he can stand it, and then he wants to sleep.

It doesn’t seem to matter what he wants.

“What is it, Alfred?” he asks, taking pains to take the edge off his voice. He wasn’t raised to speak to his elders like that.

“I’d like to continue our conversation, Master Bruce.”

Bruce regards him. “I don’t know what else to do for him,” he says, which is the truth. “I’ve made his life worse. If he’d never come here …”

“Then maybe he’d be dead, having gone after Two-Face with no plan, no backup—”

“No suit?” Bruce supplies.

Alfred ignores his cheek. “I remember you at his age, you know. You weren’t so different.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

“When you told me about Batman, I told you no a thousand times, didn’t I?” Alfred asks. “And how many times did you listen to me?”

Bruce sighs. “Not once.”

“No. You’ll have to find another solution. Maybe one you don’t like.”

Bruce rubs at his brow. He has a stress headache brewing right between his eyes.

“I wanted to tell you, though, that I’m not happy with the way you handled him coming after you. And, more than that, you’d likely be dead if he hadn’t.”

“So I should thank him?”

“I told you: You’re going to have to come up with a different solution. Right now, I want to talk about what happened before Dick went after you.”

There it is. The headache spiderwebs out from between Bruce’s eyes, sending sticky strands of pain throughout his forehead, behind his eyes.

“Nothing unusual.”

“You walked into a trap.”

“No, I jumped into it,” Bruce says. Alfred does not look amused, so he adds: “It’s an occupational hazard.”

“I am worried your head isn’t in the game.”

Bruce isn’t sure how he’s still being lectured. He rubs at the pain in his temple. “I’ve been … things are complicated right now.”

“You cannot be Batman if you cannot be focused. You’ll get yourself killed.”

“So what should I do? Take a vacation?”

“You should focus,” Alfred says, like all he has to do is flip a switch.

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder.”

Bruce sighs. “That’s not—you don’t know how this feels.” 

“I know how it feels watching you leave the house and not being sure if you’ll come back.”

That hurts. “I’m sorry,” Bruce says. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done that’s ever hurt you, Alfred. You know—you know that’s not why I do it.”

“I do. I also know I haven’t been this worried about you for a long time.” 

“I’m open to suggestions.”

“I suggest we have a conversation about it.”

“We are.”

“No, Master Bruce. The _other_ kind of conversation.” 

Bruce’s stomach flip-flops, which is the exact same response he’s always had to the possibility of a spanking. It’s been years since he’s been spanked. The last time was on the jet to a Board of Directors meeting, after Bruce discovered he’d brought the wrong documents, and before Alfred made him sit on a raw ass and redo the correct forms from the beginning. 

He had certainly focused after that.

Alfred is waiting for a response. Bruce is grown, now, and what he’s done is a nebulous sort of foul. It’s not enough for Alfred to take charge without any input from Bruce. 

It isn’t conventional. But Bruce Wayne has never been much for convention. 

“Okay,” he says. “Worth a shot.”

“Good boy,” Alfred says. “Can you go across my knee, or will it hurt your ribs?”

They’re bruised and taped, but not broken. “I think it’ll be okay,” Bruce says. “Even if it hurts, I … I need to. I need that part of it.”

“All right,” Alfred says gently. “That’s just fine. We can do that.”

He sits in the big chair before the computer console, and waits. 

Bruce strips the rest of the suit off. He lowers himself across Alfred’s lap, just like he’s done a hundred times. The location is new, but it’s appropriate, really. Alfred puts one hand on his back, holding him in place. Bruce lets his head hang, and he breathes in slowly, and waits for the spanking to start.

It does soon. Alfred starts with a firm hit to his right cheek. A long pause, then a good slap to the left cheek. Bruce breathes. He feels the pain start to bloom in his backside. He feels the familiar containment of being over Alfred’s lap, almost a place of comfort even with the reason he’s there. Alfred spanks him slowly, thoroughly, hard. The smacks are far apart, so Alfred can make sure each one packs a good wallop. Maybe it’s because it’s been a while since he’s been spanked, or because of the stress and having everything he’s feeling so close to the surface, but Bruce isn’t prepared for just how much it hurts. The pain is sharp and insistent, at the forefront of his brain. The chaos in his mind quiets, because there’s only room for PAIN PAIN PAIN IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS. His breaths grow short as the spanking continues, as the surface pain transmutes into a profound ache deep in the muscle. Bruce feels more present than he has in a long time, everything crystallized into the sensation of Alfred’s hand smacking down on his aching flesh. 

When it’s over, Alfred lets him up. Bruce is flushed and panting and, impossibly, clear-headed. Centered. Focused.

Alfred brings him some sweats. Bruce climbs into them, taking a moment to rub his sore backside. It would be embarrassing if he was doing it in front of anyone but Alfred, but he’s safe here. He’s totally safe.

Alfred waits until Bruce is done rubbing, and then he embraces him, right arm gentle against Bruce’s bruised ribs. Bruce sighs into his collar.

“How do you always know what’s good for me?” he asks.

Alfred laughs. “Practice, Master Bruce. Lots of practice.”

Bruce snorts. “No kidding.”

“You have always been a bit of a handful,” Alfred says kindly.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“I’m not,” Alfred says firmly. “There are times I’ve had to correct you. Times I’ve had to teach you lessons. Times I’ve wanted different things for you. But never once have I wished _you_ were any different.”

Bruce bows his head. “Thanks, Alfred.”

“You’re welcome, Master Bruce. Time for bed, now, I think.”

“I think you’re right. Again.”

They leave the Batcave together. Alfred pauses at the door, watches Bruce start the stairs up to his room before going to find his own.

He wouldn’t change any of it.  



End file.
